"Reflections," a collaborative production between the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, California and the Bolshoi Theatre, runs from January 20-23, 2011 at OCPAC. Bolshoi trained dancers (including several who are currently working at other companies) perform works choreographed by an intriguing list of contemporary choreographers. Debra Levine previews the performances in the Los Angeles Times.

Thanks, Francis, for getting this started. These articles are a fine beginning.

Well it's finally happening. Those "Moscow girls" are moving to Southern California. This is serious Beatles-Beach Boy-Surf country and the big splash is about to be made and I'm getting excited about it !

I have only seen one dance performance in the last five months and I am hoping to change all that in a big way by the end of this month starting with this one. I got tickets ages ago, but I am just beginning to feel the energy and if you want to go serious--the significance. Remember that Mikhail Baryshnikov once jumped the so-called 'Iron Curtain' to be able to do what these ladies are doing and they seem to be very excited about it. The world has certainly changed, but the desire to experience and grow never changes.

It's the ladies turn to be featured--'The Queens of Dance.'

Each of these ladies has chosen her own choreographer(s) and the paths chosen often lead a long way from home.

What these ladies, who I often think of as an expression of the 'Ethereal' or 'The Earth Angel,' are doing is to test new waters. I think that they are great right where they are, but if they want to experience and possibly grow then I wish them the best. However well they do with this, I hope that they realize how great they are already.

I will try to post some more thoughts about all this and be able to tell about some of the things that I actually see in about two weeks.

[typo correction and some minor word changes made]

Last edited by Buddy on Fri Jan 14, 2011 5:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.

"Five custom-made solos and one duet form the main attraction of "Reflections," a full evening of ballet that includes three other group works.

"The commissioned choreographers form an elite international corps. Drastic modernist Karole Armitage, minimalist Lucinda Childs and Canadian-born Aszure Barton are New Yorkers. Jorma Elo, a native Finn, choreographs for the Boston Ballet. From the Old World come Wayne McGregor of the Royal Ballet in London and Italy-born Renato Zanella, former director of the Vienna State Ballet.

"Each ballerina chose her own choreographer for collaboration.

"The group works include a Bigonzetti premiere, "CINQUE," incorporating humor into a Vivaldi score. Spaniard Nacho Duato, longtime director of Compañia Nacional de Danza de España and the newly appointed director of St. Petersburg's Mikhailovsky Theater, contributes a revised trio version of his 1997 "Remansos." The sole vestige of neoclassicism is George Balanchine's 1955 "Pas de Trois," set to Glinka with restored costumes by Karinska, New York City Ballet's great Russian-expat tutu maven."

Bigonzetti's "Cinque," a 45 minute ballet featuring five of the 'ballerinas,' having a solo for each of them, will close the program.

The production will then be seen at the Bolshoi next week and the Bolshoi keeps the rights to the works.

Perhaps this statement from the Levine article illustrates the dancers' enthusiasm for this project.

"Danilian [the producer] said, "Shipulina tore her knee during performance in 2009. She was in touch with me, saying, 'I will recover. Don't take me out from project.' Nine months after surgery, the first time she wore pointe shoes was in Orange County [in August]." "

I just saw the Sunday show. Wow, that was awful, and to echo an earlier sentiment, it was an almost total waste of the dancing talent.

The show starts with Nacho Duato's Remansos, except with a little prologue added so that there would be women in the piece. The steps were typical Duato, and didn't really add anything to the piece. At least we got to hear more of the lovely Granados music. The main section is the same as before, and the big surprise was seeing Vyacheslav Lopatin dance the Parrish Maynard role with such poetic elegance. I wish we could have seen more of him. The other two men, Vasiliev (in Malakhov's role) and Savin (Keith Roberts's role), were OK, if a bit clunky. The ending where they lift Vasiliev upside down so he can hang on the wall by his legs was so rough, they almost knocked the wall over.

Act 2 was pretty terrible with only 1 highlight: Elo's piece for Maria Kochetkova. Unlike the others, and this would repeat itself again in the 3rd act, she looks comfortable executing modern movements, and seems to have an understanding of it: hers were the only gestures that weren't small scale. And the Elo piece, a deconstruction of ballet, with half a tutu (the right half) was actually funny and entertaining. The rest of the act was just awful, but especially bad was Karole Armitage's pas de deux. It looked like a cheap, bad copy of the famous pas from Forsythe's In the middle, somewhat elevated: the lighting went on and off, the music made Thom Willems sound like Debussy, and the upstage curtain raised up just in time to reveal the bare wall before the curtain fell. It was like the piece was furiously checking off some invisible checklist. Zanella's piece for Semionova made her look like a dancing bottle of Cristal --- is it an ironic reference to the Czars or some kind of pandering to the nouveau riche oligarchs? Who knows, and with that banal choreography, who cares? It looked like Zanella looked at Semionova's famous music video on Youtube, and then just rearranged it. It was classroom exercises done in gold silky PJs. The other pieces were inscrutably pointless, but mercifully short.

The Balanchine was welcome reprieve, if not for its genius, then at least for providing relief at watching someone competent fill the stage without fussy tricks or affectations. Just plain straightforward dancing that knew how to hold the stage and the audience's attention.

Act 3 sustained the low level of choreographic achievement with Bigonzetti's entirely wrong-headed, misapprehended Eurotrash-tastic Cinque. You had the enigmatic opening with the 5 ballerinas sitting around on Starck Ghost chairs, looking like the Desperate Housewives of Italy. You had the Vivaldi warhorses played on mandolin, strung together with little musical sensitivity. You had dim lighting with projected light rectangles. You had the dancers undressing and putting on their vestigial classical tutus and bodices on stage (with dressers coming out to help them). Even the freakin' tutus were hanging on lines which lowered them. Add to that mostly inscrutable, small-scale gestures that no one except Kochetkova made work, and you have Eurotrash choreography.

The reason for the 100% success of the programs combined....The appearance Saturday of Ivan Vasiliev in George Balanchine's "Pas de Trois"The total commitment Sunday of the ballerinas to their solo dancing in Mauro Bigonzetti's "Cinque" (the 45 minute concluding dance)

Among the "100% Brilliant Dancing" by everyone were a couple Incredibles(!)

Incredible I -- Natalia Osipova's dancing in both performances, and I assume all four (with Ivan Vasiliev), of Mauro Bigonzetti's "Serenata." Someone on the internet quite awhile ago referred to Natalia Osipova as "a force of nature." That seems like a good place to start. She seems to have parallels to the amazing Diana Vishneva at the moment, but she is still a very distinct individual. I am becoming more and more convinced that she is also a ' Mind Boggling Genius ! ' I personally had a hard time keeping myself under control during her second performance of this dance. Her physicality and expression have to be seen to be believed.

(Interestingly the only major change in the program was her dancing this with Ivan Vasiliev instead of dancing Wayne McGregor's "Chaconne" with Vyacheslav Lopatkin.)

Incredible II -- Ivan Vasiliev dancing George Balanchine's "Pas de Trois." A former ballet dancing friend, whose opinion I greatly respect, already considers Ivan Vasiliev equal to or possibly greater than Rudolph Nureyev. In regard to myself, I tried to memorize all the dancers' names in the second part of the program in case there was no time between works to look at the program. There wasn't. I was concentrating on the ballerinas as usual and lost track of a few of them. Then I saw this guy dancing and I thought, "He's pretty good. Who is he? I know who he is. He's Vasiliev." After that realization one other name stayed in my head for the rest of the performance -- Nijinsky !

There is so much that could be written about this program. I am in the middle of a couple weeks of traveling and will try to do the best I can to write some more about these wonderful performances.

If you have any doubt about the dancers commitment to this, remember that the actual Bolshoi dancers worked 12 hours a day for three weeks in August, their Bolshoi vacation time(!), to accomplish this.

For me, one message is very clear. These seven 'High Art Celestial Maidens' showed without a doubt they are more than capable of giving and sharing Brilliance in the world of Contempory Expression. This was evident and consistent throughout the entire program. Each in her own way was wonderful.

From the Debra Levine Los Angeles Times article cited above.

"Danilian [the producer], speaking from his Ardani Artists Management office in New York, remembered the moment vividly. "Henry Segerstrom ["The real-estate tycoon, whose land and multimillions of dollars fostered the development of Orange County's flourishing arts campus"] asked if he and his wife, Elizabeth, could drop in on a rehearsal for half an hour. I told him, 'It's your house; take as much time as you need.' He spent four hours and said,

'Now I know for what we built the theater!'"

(Andre, I just got back from a couple hours on the road and I've not had time to read your comments or anyone else's, but will look forward to doing so as soon as possible. I did catch your concluding sentence though. I guess folks certainly can see things differently. Best wishes.)

[One concluding comment. The audience gave each performance a standing ovation.]

[And one more thought please. Critics, commentators and posters (like us) can have very distinct opinions, but the dancers take home one very overwhelming impression-- that of the audience, and I think that anyone who was at the performance today will have to confirm that the audience's concluding response was highly, highly enthusiastic.]

So, would I have enjoyed these performances nearly as much if I wasn't familiar with these dancers and had not know how famous that they are ?

Yes, I believe that I would have, maybe more so, because it would have been a very pleasant surprise to see something like this done by anyone.

I love to see lyrical beauty anywhere and this is something these dancers radiate. I have gone to modern dance performances and seen a dancer and thought, "She must have been a ballerina. How beautiful she looks here."

I don't have any definite ideas about what a 'modern dancer' should be. I feel that dancers, like the ones that I saw this weekend, infuse a wealth of beauty into whatever 'style' that they are performing, in their own special way.

I would love to see a 'balletic' beauty as prevalent as possible in modern dance and these dancers showed that this can be done and that it can be compelling. Possibly the best quality in modern dance is freedom of expression. If this can be combined with the elegant, lyrical and ethereal, which I feel that these dancers represent, then all the better.

This weekend these dancers did a commendable and remarkable job in expressing themselves in an idiom that can be quite different from the one that they have so carefully and meticulously been trained in. I remember talking to a modern style dancer and she told me that it took her six months before she felt 'loosened up' enough from her ballet training to be comfortable with modern. I think that these ladies did an extremely fine job in adapting to a new sensitivity.

They were Competent, Convincing and Compelling.

Possibly the most convincing, enlightening and enjoyable presentation was the opening to Mauro Bigonzetti's "Cinque." This was the 45 minute original work that ended the evening. The first scene was a delightful creation of high art quirkiness and brilliant eccentricity. Five of the ladies, Maria Kochetkova, Natalia Osipova, Yekaterina Krysanova, Yekaterina Shipulina and Polina Semionova (Saturday) and Anastasia Stashkevich (Sunday) couldn't have done this any better. They sat on chairs and moved around in a kaleidoscope of changing attitudes and activities .Their stage personas and imagery could have fit equally well in the Louvre Museum of Art or on a Broadway stage. Yekaterina Krysanova sat in the middle and couldn't have been a better focal point for all that was going on. She was delightful as were all the others and they were about as far away from "Swan Lake" as you could possibly imagine.

I will try to cover some more highlights and individual descriptions if I can. I have been talking almost entirely about the women, but I will say quickly that the men did excellent partnering and some extremely fine soloing. I mentioned Ivan Vasiliev's amazing work in George Balanchines "Pas de Trois," but he also did an incredible job getting Natalia Osipova launched into orbit and kept there in Mauro Bigonzetti's other brilliant effort, "Serenata." And the following night Alexander Volchkov took over the male dancing in "Pas de Trois" and was the epitome of male gracefulness and artistic accomplishment. All the women were magnificent in their range of adaptability and consummate artistry.

The program opened with a work by Nacho Duato, "Remansos," featuring three couples.

The middle of the program had four female solos, two duets (female and male) and a work for three dancers (two females and one male).

The program ended with Mauro Bigonzetti's "Cinque" with solo and group dancing for five women.

There were three works involving more than two dancers and in these there were some changes in dancers for the two performances. Otherwise the dancers performed the same work each night.

Saturday began with Nacho Duato's "Remansos" and Polina Semionova rolling across the stage towards the audience in a beautiful flowing motion to very lovely music by Enrique Granados. My immediate impression was, "I think that I am going to like this evening." I did, very much. The mood seemed just right for these wonderfully refined dancers and the totally 'modern' introduction, a star lady rolling across the stage, was given a lovely, airy feeling by Polina Semionova's beautifully graceful manner. Anastasia Stashkevich performed the same part in a very lovely manner Sunday. Unless I missed something there was no pointe dancing in this work, but I really wasn't concentrating on this.

I'd like to mention all the dancers.

Natalia Osipova's amazing dancing in Mauro Bigonzetti's "Serenata," which I already mentioned, was highlighted by numerous astonishing lifts with Ivan Vasiliev. She also really caught my eye at the end of the first work, "Remansos," when she stood out because of her highly compelling and outreaching expression.

Yekaterina Shipulina, Polina Semionova and Anastasia Stashkevich were so noteworthy for their refined, elegant, statuesque and graceful essence that shown through in all that they did.

Yekaterina Krysanova and Maria Kochetkova were absolutely Precious with their lovely, highly expressive personalities and their lighter than air dance presence.

Olga Malinovskaya is a vibrantly lovely dancer.

All their dancing, I thought was excellent and appropriate to the intent of the program.

Ivan Vasiliev is a phenomenon, possibly one of the best male dancers ever !

Alexander Volchkov was also excellent showing Nijinskyesque gracefullness in George Balanchine's "Pas-De-Trois."

Denis Savin I just like. He's an excellent dancer with a very pleasant manner. The fine flexibility of his legs was also very noticeable.

Vyacheslav Lopatin did very fine dancing as well.

Yekaterina Shipulina, I liked very much because she is possibly the most classically based dancer in the group and her desire and success in doing this seems very commendable. I thought that she was lovely in Asure Barton's "Dumka" set to the music of Tchaikovsky that seemed very appropriate for her. She was also a delightful, acting 'knockout,' as were all the other ladies participating, in the beginning of Mauro Bigonzetti's "Cinque."

I thought that Anastasia Stashkevich and Olga Malinovskaya, especially Anastasia Stashkevich, were equally lovely in Lucinda Child's gently beautiful "Book Of Harmony." Anastasia Stashkevich was absolutely elegant and I look forward to seeing much more of her in the Bolshoi's more traditional presentations. Olga Malinovskaya's vibrancy was delightful, along with her dancing in Saturday night's performance of George Balanchine's "Pas-De-Trois."

Yekaterina Krysanova is fascinating to me. I have loved her from the beginning as a 'creation of the air,' ethereal being, and may always appreciate her the most for this. She is also a fine virtuoso dancer and a very charming and highly versatile personality. She showed all of this brilliantly throughout the weekend.

One funny thing also happened. I was watching the dancer in one of the works and she did several marvelous, lighter than air jumps. I thought, "Now only Yekaterina Krysanova can move like that, that's why I love her dancing so much." It turned out that it was Maria Kochetkova who was actually dancing! So I tended to group them both together after that. Both were lovely !

I liked Maria Kochetkova very much in her half-tutued solo in Jorma Elo's "One Overture." Once again it was her personality that charmed me.

Polina Semionova started the second part of the program, as she did the first on Saturday. She danced in Renato Zanella's "Strauss Incontra Verdi" and was as usual a vision of 'classical' beauty and highly impressed us all with her technical prowess.

So, I guess that's it for now.

It was a great pleasure to be able to see all this, to be able to write about it, reflect on it and share it with others.

I think that this was a valuable and rewarding growing experience for both for the artists and the art form and appeared to be a great treat for the audiences as well.

I was at last Saturday's and Sunday's performances of Reflections at the Orange County Performing ArtsCenter, and recently read Lewis Segal's dismissive review of it in the LATimes. I had my own Lewis Segal moments which reached a peak on Saturday night in a rarely seen Balanchineballet (Pas de Trois, 1955): finally, I thought, we have an adult choreographer who knowsbetter than anyone on the program how to construct a witty, beautifuldance. But I wasn’t paying enough attention to what the dancers weresaying. By Sunday when I saw the program for the second time Irealized (a) these wonderfully trained Russian dancers loved what theywere dancing—they weren’t just marking time until they could get backto the 19th-century; (b) they were full collaborators and co-creatorsof these dances; (c) they let these dances reveal their individualityand vulnerability more fully than any of the classics they oftendance so spectacularly.

When I first saw Maria Kochetkova in the piece Jarmo Elo created for her Ithought, “he isn’t doing her any favors,” but the second time around Irealized she was totally into it, and it actually revealed thetremendous strength in that bird-like body, her wit, her quickness,and her dance intelligence.

When Natalia Osipova appeared in Mario Bigonzetti’s almost brutalpiece, Serenata, with her short dark hair uncombed, in a plain dress,with bare feet and bare legs, performing what looked likeuncomfortable, tortured moves, I thought, “where is my beautifulAurora from last summer in New York with David Hallberg?” But thesecond time I saw it I realized Osipova is not only a memorable Aurora (and Swanhildaand Kitri), she is a tough, punky girl who does not feel pretty orgracious or elegant, and can convey that, too. But when I do see herdancing with beauty and passion (and Bigonzetti created some wonderfuldances for her and all the dancers in his 50-minute ballet, Cinque) I won’t forget this other reality—it only deepens her art.

With Polina Semionova, who in some ways is the most developedartistically of all these twenty-something stars (she was hired as aprincipal dancer for the Staatsballett Berlin when she graduated fromthe Bolshoi Academy at 17—she’s now 27), the contrast wasn’t so great.Still, I was able to see her individuality as a dancer much moreclearly this weekend than when she brought down the house at theMariinsky Festival in 2009 in La Bayadere.

I actually felt hopeful about the future of dance after theperformance. Russians are justifiably proud of their new generation ofgifted dancers. I’m sure many Bolshoi fans in Russia will complain when Reflelctions is performed in Moscow (Maria Kochetkova has said as much in a recent intrerview: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/01/2 ... D520110128). But Reflections is part of a much larger conversation going on in Russia right now that includes Nacho Duarte’s appointment as artistic director of a major ballet company in St. Petersburg: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/ne ... 4960.story

I was very glad to see these extraordinary young dancers' contribution to the debate.

....I realized (a) these wonderfully trained Russian dancers loved what theywere dancing....(b) they were full collaborators and co-creators of these dances; (c) they let these dances reveal their individuality and vulnerability....

I actually felt hopeful about the future of dance after the performance. Russians are justifiably proud of their new generation of gifted dancers.

I do agree with this, bcx. Thank you for your fine and sympathetic review.

I was sitting next to a lady at Sunday's performance and she had attended a pre-performance lecture that I didn't know about. She said that the lecturer had emphasized how much the choreographers had tried to let the dancers express themselves.

I also felt that so much depended on what the dancers committed of themselves, especially in the last work, Mauro Bigonzetti's "Cinque." It was 45 minutes long and had lengthy solos for each of the five female dancers. To the extent that these five dancers committed themselves, these solos became almost improvisational. The work was only intended to be approximately 20 minutes long with the introductory group concept being clever enough to probably carry itself no matter who was performing it. The dancers adapted themselves excellently to this part. It was in the solos where the dancers seemed to have to speak for themselves. In one of the articles it was stated that as Bigonzetti and the dancers further developed their involvement that he decided to lengthen the work to 45 minutes.

In regard to Natalia Osipova's amazing performance in Bigonzetti's "Serenata" (with the excellent assistance of Ivan Vasiliev) I feel that this was as act of self expression of the highest order. It was very reminiscent of similar efforts by Diana Vishneva. The physicality and emotion is carried to the outer limits of these ladies' capabilities and is 'Mind Boggling.' For me, there is a powerful poetic statement to it all. Natalia Osipova is reaching out as far as she can to physically express herself. She is responding, opening herself up, to an overwhelming sensation of universal immensity and beauty. For me it is not only a magnificent, athletically artistic statement, but also an expression of great emotional depth and meaning as shown in her highly compelling and completely believable facial expression -- a total statement of extreme beauty.

One other idea that you mentioned, bcx, is about the "debate" that will go on in Russia and the world of ballet. I am beginning to become aware of the "debate" that could gain momentum in the world of 'modern dance' regarding the inclusion of ballet's sense of grace and 'ethereality' in its sensitivity. I would hope that both worlds will benefit from such fine efforts as were displayed by these exceptional performing artists last weekend.

[the paragraph referring to Natalia Osipova was added to]

Last edited by Buddy on Mon Jan 31, 2011 4:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Thanks, Buddy, for the reminder about how varied beauty can be. I appreciate how willing you are to share your views about what you love in ballet, and what moves you in a dancer, even when others disagree with you.

Regarding Ivan Vasiliev: although Reflections was primarily a celebration of ballerinas, I agree he was very striking in his dancing. In Balanchine's Pas de Trois he danced the male role with such blatant Bolshoi bravura, I smiled when I thought of how un-NYCB he was (the crowd loved it and he did not shy away from the cheering). Personally I preferred Alexander Volchkov's much quieter authority on Sunday, though his modesty was almost at the other extreme: didn't Polina have to practically push him to take a bow at the end?

In regard to "Pas de Trois," I loved the way that Ivan Vasiliev just seemed to stay so gracefully high and suspended in the air while he was doing his entrechats ('flickering' the feet together), etc.. I had to think of all the things that I've read about Nijinsky, when I saw this. I'm sure that your perception of him is just as valid. Sometimes it's a matter of what details you are focusing on and at what moment.

I definitely agree that Alexander Volchkov did an execellent job and I even thought of Nijinsky again. Perhaps it's inherent in Balanchine's choreography. (I missed the part when "Polina" had to nudge him to take a bow.)

Thanks for the information that this is a seldom performed work. I hadn't heard of it, but I am not that familiar with all that Balanchine has done. It's such a beautiful and technically interesting work, that I'm surprised that it isn't performed much more often.

A video of excerpts from Mauro Bigonzetti's "Cinque," the final piece of Reflections, performed in Moscow at the Bolshoi Theater on 27 January 2011 by Maria Kochetcova, Natalia Osipova, Yekaterina Krysanova, Polina Semionova, and Yekaterina Shipulina is here:

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